12 Home Maintenance Items That Will Help Prepare You for Winter

Your home is supposed to be your refuge from the elements, a place where you can feel comfortable no matter how cold it is outside. But with rising utility costs, keeping your home warm may be more difficult than before — and even if you’re proactive about defending yourself against the cold, your home can still take a winter beating.

Now is the time to act. Household maintenance products designed to defend your home against frost, blowing snow and freeze damage will not only make your home more comfortable, but also more resistant to winter damage.

The basics

There are some simple purchases you shouldn’t skip this year, even though the Farmer’s Almanac predicts a moderate season.

• Heating appliances. No matter how much effort you put into it, your home (or specific areas of it) may still be colder than you’d like. One or two solid radiators will be very useful to you.

• Caulk. Caulking windows and doors will help keep drafts out and protect your home from water and ice damage. You can even use caulk with a built-in trigger so you don’t need a caulking gun.

• Weather stripping. Some foam weather stripping around windows and doors can go a long way in blocking drafts. You can also apply some classic plastic window insulation kits to particularly drafty locations.

• Draft blockers. Placing a few draft excluders under doors can help keep cold air out and warm air out.

Electric snow shovel

If you live in an area where it snows, you know you have work to do in your future. These days, however, hand shoveling is just a way to destroy your back and ruin your day. A cordless excavator will make cleaning those steps, sidewalks, and driveways much easier and get you in there much quicker to find cocoa.

Thermal curtains

If you’ve taken the basic steps to prevent drafts from entering the home but you’re still feeling the cold near your windows, thermal curtains will add a layer of insulation to trap that cold air. Bonus: They’ll do a similar job in the summer, helping your home stay cool.

Pipe Temperature Monitors

Frozen pipes are a nightmare. Leaving a strategically chosen faucet running during cold snaps can help keep your pipes from bursting, but it won’t actually stop them from freezing. You need two things: pipe insulation tape (or foam covers, although tape is more flexible and easier to fit) and pipe temperature controllers like this one, or this one. Insulation can help keep your pipes warm, and monitors will warn you if things are headed for a freezing disaster.

If you want to be Really proactive about frozen pipes, you can also invest in pipe heating cables, which will keep your pipes at a constant temperature and make freezing virtually impossible as long as you have electricity.

Garage door insulation kit

Your garage door is only slightly better than having a huge, garage-sized open space on your house. If you want to have an overall warmer home, sealing that drafty garage door with an insulation kit is a good start. It is relatively easy to apply and will make a difference to drafts and heat transfer without compromising the operation of your door. Bonus: It also reduces noise transfer, making your garage a little quieter.

Heating cables and roof rakes

Your roof is (hopefully) built to handle snow loads, but that doesn’t mean having several feet of deep snow on it for weeks or months is a good idea. You can shovel your roof if you’re careful, but a good roof rake is a safer and easier option. You can also invest in roof heating cables: They can prevent ice dams, which occur when the heat inside your home melts the snow on the roof, which then refreezes at the edges, causing leaks and costly damage.

Faucet cover

All the pipe insulation in the world won’t help you if you have exterior faucets or faucets in your home. These fixtures can also freeze and cause damage to the exterior and interior of your home. To avoid this, get a few inexpensive faucet covers and place them on each outdoor light fixture you have.